FTA: "In other words, for every dollar McDonald's earns, a little more than 17 cents goes toward the income and benefits of its <a data-cke-saved-href="http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/04/news/companies/mc donalds_jobs/index.ht m" target="_hplink">more than 500,000 U.S. employees."

Yes...there are no other costs besides employee pay and benefits. What the student hasn't taken into account, if minimum wage was doubled, the rising costs associated with the suppliers, the ones who manufacture the beef patties, chicken nuggets, soda syrup, shake mix, french fries, fish sandwiches, packaging suppliers, etc. These are all manufactured by other companies under contract to, in this case, McDonalds and are typically union-shops (at least on the east coast). If everyone's wages increase the product cost will increase and there will be less jobs.

Marcus Aurelius:ferretman: FTA: "In other words, for every dollar McDonald's earns, a little more than 17 cents goes toward the income and benefits of its <a data-cke-saved-href="http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/04/news/companies/mc donalds_jobs/index.ht m" target="_hplink">more than 500,000 U.S. employees."

Yes...there are no other costs besides employee pay and benefits. What the student hasn't taken into account, if minimum wage was doubled, the rising costs associated with the suppliers, the ones who manufacture the beef patties, chicken nuggets, soda syrup, shake mix, french fries, fish sandwiches, packaging suppliers, etc. These are all manufactured by other companies under contract to, in this case, McDonalds and are typically union-shops (at least on the east coast). If everyone's wages increase the product cost will increase and there will be less jobs.

Thank God you are nowhere near reality.

Setting the minimum wage close to the true living minimum wage floats all boats, and the economy grows much more quickly.

While companies like Walmart and McDonald's probably could pay $15 and hour by only raising prices on each item they sell a few cents, most smaller businesses would go bankrupt if they had to pay that much. Not only that, but other people start demanding pay raises as well. People with skills and experience who were making $15-20 an hour before minimum wage went up are going to demand an appropriate raise as well, and by all rights they deserve it.

After a year or two, when all the wage and price increases have finally settled down, the economy will be right back to where it was before, and $15 an hour minimum wage wont buy a damn thing more than it did at $7.25.

ferretman:FTA: "In other words, for every dollar McDonald's earns, a little more than 17 cents goes toward the income and benefits of its <a data-cke-saved-href="http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/04/news/companies/mc donalds_jobs/index.ht m" target="_hplink">more than 500,000 U.S. employees."

Yes...there are no other costs besides employee pay and benefits. What the student hasn't taken into account, if minimum wage was doubled, the rising costs associated with the suppliers, the ones who manufacture the beef patties, chicken nuggets, soda syrup, shake mix, french fries, fish sandwiches, packaging suppliers, etc. These are all manufactured by other companies under contract to, in this case, McDonalds and are typically union-shops (at least on the east coast). If everyone's wages increase the product cost will increase and there will be less jobs.

If the suppliers etc are union shops and their members are only making minimum wage, those are officially the worst unions ever.

McDonald's only owns 15% of its restaurants -- the remainder are franchised. The vast, vast majority of people at the burger-flipping level are not reflected in MCD's wage costs. The "study" is a total and complete fail from beginning to end and the student who wrote it should go back to his first class and punch the teacher.

ferretman:FTA: "In other words, for every dollar McDonald's earns, a little more than 17 cents goes toward the income and benefits of its <a data-cke-saved-href="http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/04/news/companies/mc donalds_jobs/index.ht m" target="_hplink">more than 500,000 U.S. employees."

Yes...there are no other costs besides employee pay and benefits. What the student hasn't taken into account, if minimum wage was doubled, the rising costs associated with the suppliers, the ones who manufacture the beef patties, chicken nuggets, soda syrup, shake mix, french fries, fish sandwiches, packaging suppliers, etc. These are all manufactured by other companies under contract to, in this case, McDonalds and are typically union-shops (at least on the east coast). If everyone's wages increase the product cost will increase and there will be less jobs.

More people earning more money will allow them to spend more in their local economies supporting other businesses that will then earn more profits and be able to expand hiring more employees and creating more jobs.

Actually, another way to look at it would be to say that if you cut the average McDonald's worker's salary in half, to maybe $4.00 an hour or something like that, McDonald's would be able to CUT 68 cents from the price of their Big Macs. That would help make food much more affordable to other people, which might help reduce the almost universal dependency on Food Stamps that Obama has created.

Going even further, if McDonald's cut salaries to but cut the price of Big Macs by LESS than 68 cents, what would happen is that McDonald's would, overall, become more profitable. This, in turn, would give the corporation more money that would eventually find its way back to the very same workers who are supposedly now receiving "lower wages." It's not actually that their wages are getting lower, it's that they're getting less DIRECT money and more INDIRECT money. But it all works out the same in the end -- and, I'm not afraid to say, probably to the benefit of the employee. It's a well known fact that charitable donations are at their lowest ever now, after years of recession. But if profits were to start going up again? Why, it would be like Christmas year-round.

The reality is that life is not an Oprah show. McDonald's can't just walk into their restaurants tomorrow and point at everybody and say, "You get a raise, you get a raise, EVERYBODY GETS A RAISE." They'd love to, but they can't. Because, see, if they do that, everybody gets a raise, sure...but then the price of food goes up, which means even more people go on food stamps, which means profits drop, which means charitable donations drop as well -- and, in the end, everybody gets poorer. Everybody.

Have you ever watched lobsters, subby? A tank of them. Every now and then, one lobster will try to escape. He'll swim up to the top and be just about to get out of the tank. And do you know what those other lobsters will do? I'll tell you. They'll grab him and drag him back down. Right back down there with him.

ferretman:FTA: "In other words, for every dollar McDonald's earns, a little more than 17 cents goes toward the income and benefits of its <a data-cke-saved-href="http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/04/news/companies/mc donalds_jobs/index.ht m" target="_hplink">more than 500,000 U.S. employees."

Yes...there are no other costs besides employee pay and benefits. What the student hasn't taken into account, if minimum wage was doubled, the rising costs associated with the suppliers, the ones who manufacture the beef patties, chicken nuggets, soda syrup, shake mix, french fries, fish sandwiches, packaging suppliers, etc. These are all manufactured by other companies under contract to, in this case, McDonalds and are typically union-shops (at least on the east coast). If everyone's wages increase the product cost will increase and there will be less jobs.

Thank God you are nowhere near reality.

Setting the minimum wage close to the true living minimum wage floats all boats, and the economy grows much more quickly.

ferretman:FTA: "In other words, for every dollar McDonald's earns, a little more than 17 cents goes toward the income and benefits of its <a data-cke-saved-href="http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/04/news/companies/mc donalds_jobs/index.ht m" target="_hplink">more than 500,000 U.S. employees."

Yes...there are no other costs besides employee pay and benefits. What the student hasn't taken into account, if minimum wage was doubled, the rising costs associated with the suppliers, the ones who manufacture the beef patties, chicken nuggets, soda syrup, shake mix, french fries, fish sandwiches, packaging suppliers, etc. These are all manufactured by other companies under contract to, in this case, McDonalds and are typically union-shops (at least on the east coast). If everyone's wages increase the product cost will increase and there will be less jobs.

Yeah, your right to get cheap-ass food far outweighs those people's right to earn enough to lead a decent life.

FFS people, pay for what you get. People are trying to make a living, just like you.

ferretman:Yes...there are no other costs besides employee pay and benefits. What the student hasn't taken into account, if minimum wage was doubled, the rising costs associated with the suppliers, the ones who manufacture the beef patties, chicken nuggets, soda syrup, shake mix, french fries, fish sandwiches, packaging suppliers, etc. These are all manufactured by other companies under contract to, in this case, McDonalds and are typically union-shops (at least on the east coast). If everyone's wages increase the product cost will increase and there will be less jobs.

If the cost of a Big Mac were to increase by 68 cents, the corporate jets would get more gold inlay and the yachts would grow another foot longer. The corporation knows that people who work in fast food do it because they have to, so why would they pay higher wages?

Yes, jobs like working the fryer at McDonald's is supposed to be an entry-level position in the workforce. The holy Job Creators™ are supposed to be creating jobs to advance into, but we haven't seen much of that in the last 10 years, and all the while their share of income has skyrocketed.

Don't be surprised when people start looking into more coercive options when it comes to improving their lot when the monied classes aren't holding up their end of the social contract.

A lot of people need to admit that $15/hour is scarily close to what they make for their "skilled" labor and don't want to see this ever come to fruition since it eliminates their feeling of superiority over the "poors".

So how much would it cost them to replace McDonald's employees with a touchscreen kiosk and a robotic arm? Because that shiat would get my order right and leave it in the fryer for the appropriate length of time.

No, in the civilised world, the choice is either to have high wages, high taxes and welfare, or the unique basket case in America where no-one wants to pay for anything for anyone under any circumstances.

Dow Jones and the Temple of Doom:But what if the increased cost resulted in a decrease in demand and thus lower sales? They may be able to pay employees more, but they'd have to cut costs somewhere else.

well, given that your average CEO makes 400% more than they're worth....you could start there.

Yep. Every able-bodied individual who is on any kind of long-term assistance is being subsidized by taxpayers (and more specifically, the US' creditors).

Would increasing minimum wage to a livable wage cause inflation? You bet. But not as bad as you might think it will. It will level off, our working class individuals will have increased consumption power, and then our economy will grow by leaps and bounds. Just like every other civilized nation that has increased to a livable minimum wage.

Jesus, guys, it's a thought experiment. You don't have to actually double their salaries - especially the CEO and stuff. The point is that you could easily increase their wages, pay for it with a small increase in prices, and have everyone be a bit better off.

I work with minimum wage employees all the time... there's a reason they are minimum wage employees.

I work with managers and vice presidents all the time, as well as with doctors and accountants. some are good at their jobs, some clearly have no business being where they are, and most just wanna get the job done and go home for a beer and maybe mow the lawn before the sun goes down. which has about as much relevance as your statement here - its been my experience that if you underpay someone you get what you pay for. if there isn't any incentive for an employee to actually participate, then yeah - you'll probably get crappy employees. welcome to human nature 101. offer someone a real wage increase for doing a good job and hey, i'll bet you get good employees. not just an extra .60 cents either, I mean $25 bucks an hour if they show up and work for it.

Pray 4 Mojo:I work with minimum wage employees all the time... there's a reason they are minimum wage employees.

Cool story bro! My roommate's neighbor's cousin once saw some woman buy cigarettes and a bunch of junk food with food stamps and drive away in an Escalade therefore all forms of Welfare(or "entitlements") are teh evil.

gilgigamesh:ferretman: FTA: "In other words, for every dollar McDonald's earns, a little more than 17 cents goes toward the income and benefits of its <a data-cke-saved-href="http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/04/news/companies/mc donalds_jobs/index.ht m" target="_hplink">more than 500,000 U.S. employees."

Yes...there are no other costs besides employee pay and benefits. What the student hasn't taken into account, if minimum wage was doubled, the rising costs associated with the suppliers, the ones who manufacture the beef patties, chicken nuggets, soda syrup, shake mix, french fries, fish sandwiches, packaging suppliers, etc. These are all manufactured by other companies under contract to, in this case, McDonalds and are typically union-shops (at least on the east coast). If everyone's wages increase the product cost will increase and there will be less jobs.

If the suppliers etc are union shops and their members are only making minimum wage, those are officially the worst unions ever.

But if the people working in the factories are making the same $15/hr minimum wage that the McJobbers are, they're gonna revolt.

oren0:Morelix looked at McDonald's 2012 annual report and discovered that only 17.1 percent of the fast-food giant's revenue goes toward salaries and benefits. In other words, for every dollar McDonald's earns, a little more than 17 cents goes toward the income and benefits of its more than 500,000 U.S. employees.

Thus, if McDonald's executives wanted to double the salaries of all of its employees and keep profits and other expenses the same, it would need to increase prices by just 17 cents per dollar, according to Morelix.

As has been pointed out above, this is a total failure of economics. Assuming that a 17% increase in prices would result in a 17% increase in revenue is idiocy, because the increased price will result in lower demand and therefore lower sales. If the original statement were true, McDonalds would just raise their prices 17% and earn that much more profit.

Not to mention that if you double the pay of the lowest paid, you're going to have to raise everybody's pay, as supervisors and managers aren't going to work for the same (or less) than the line cooks. And, it's going to increase the p/e ratio and lower the price of your stock (if it took a $1 investment to make $1.25, and now it takes a $1.17 investment to make the same $1.25, investors are going to flee). By the same token, your borrowing costs are going to skyrocket, as you make back much less on each borrowed dollar. The chain reaction goes on and on.

Short version: the person who conducted the "study" is an idiot. "Labor costs are 17 cents per dollar, so doubling wages will only add 17% to the price" is something that nobody who's taken even an intro to business, economics or finance would say.

Pray 4 Mojo:If my minimum wage employees are crappy employees BECAUSE I'm paying them minimum wage... then they are crappy employees. Show up early, be smart, work hard and learn... you will get more responsibility and income.

But that's not how it works in the majority of min wage work places. Take walmart for example - you work your best...you get shiat on. you show up and do the bare minimum...you get shiat on. there's no incentive to work hard because you won't ever be rewarded for it. in fact there's every reason to believe you'll actually be punished for it.

A link about fast food worker's wages gets pages full of outrage because so many Farkers think they are already earning enough, but many of these complaints are probably coming from people with an 'IT admin' job.

You 'IT' people also complain about your salaries, but you are basically the janitors of 2010.

The only difference is that the fast food workers actually have the balls to try and change things.

ferretman:FTA: "In other words, for every dollar McDonald's earns, a little more than 17 cents goes toward the income and benefits of its <a data-cke-saved-href="http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/04/news/companies/mc donalds_jobs/index.ht m" target="_hplink">more than 500,000 U.S. employees."

Yes...there are no other costs besides employee pay and benefits. What the student hasn't taken into account, if minimum wage was doubled, the rising costs associated with the suppliers, the ones who manufacture the beef patties, chicken nuggets, soda syrup, shake mix, french fries, fish sandwiches, packaging suppliers, etc. These are all manufactured by other companies under contract to, in this case, McDonalds and are typically union-shops (at least on the east coast). If everyone's wages increase the product cost will increase and there will be less jobs.

First of all, the article isn't talking about doubling the minimum wage. It's talking about doubling the wage of every McDonalds employee, including the CEO. There should be no other change in operating cost.

Second, I was under the impression that fast food jobs were for high school kids to make some spare money, not for adults looking to raise and support a family. Unless you're management or higher, McD's isn't supposed to be a career.

Debeo Summa Credo:Again, when you start your business, pay the CEO no more than he's worth. With paying only fair wages to everyone, you should be able to offer a quality product at a fair price, crushing the inefficient corporations who waste all their money on executive pay.

are you familiar with how Costco is run? you might find it interesting to see how their CEO runs the business, find out how his company stacks up against WalMart.

You don't own McDonald's. It's none of your farking business what they decide to offer in wages or salary to ANY of their workers.

It bothers you that I question your false and unsupported assumptions doesn't it? interesting indeed to observe....

Weaver95:ferretman:Yes...there are no other costs besides employee pay and benefits. What the student hasn't taken into account, if minimum wage was doubled, the rising costs associated with the suppliers, the ones who manufacture the beef patties, chicken nuggets, soda syrup, shake mix, french fries, fish sandwiches, packaging suppliers, etc. These are all manufactured by other companies under contract to, in this case, McDonalds and are typically union-shops (at least on the east coast). If everyone's wages increase the product cost will increase and there will be less jobs.

ReapTheChaos:After a year or two, when all the wage and price increases have finally settled down, the economy will be right back to where it was before, and $15 an hour minimum wage wont buy a damn thing more than it did at $7.25.

If that was the case then it would be impossible for purchasing power to ever increase. Only thing is between 1947 and 1980 real purchasing power doubled.

Just raise minimum wage to $12. Since McD employees already earn more than minimum, according TFA, it will be a bonus for everyone. Problem solved. We'll do ourselves a favor by not having to hear about this crap every year or so....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Bill_of_RightsThe Second Bill of Rights was a list of rights proposed by Franklin D. Roosevelt during his State of the Union Address on January 11, 1944.[1] In his address Roosevelt suggested that the nation had come to recognize, and should now implement, a second "bill of rights". Roosevelt's argument was that the "political rights" guaranteed by the constitution and the Bill of Rights had "proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness." Roosevelt's remedy was to declare an "economic bill of rights" which would guarantee:Employment, with a living wageFreedom from unfair competition and monopoliesHousingMedical careEducation

It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people-whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth-is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights-among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.As our nation has grown in size and stature, however-as our industrial economy expanded-these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. "Necessitous men are not free men."[3] People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all-regardless of station, race, or creed.Among these are:The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;The right of every family to a decent home;The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;The right to a good education.All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.America's own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for all our citizens.For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.

The real question here is "What is a human worth apart from what they can presently contribute?"

This bad boy, or its descendents are the future of fast food. The death knell for the McJob is tolling. So this whole argument is really moot.The military is automating too, if burger flipping and gruntwork are out what then? That is the question! Answering the phones goes overseas or hell, automation is hitting there (call the Microsoft activation line: you never talk to a real person) too. What do you do with the grunts when all the grunt work is gone?

Here's a thought: Maybe the grunts aren't useless inherently (I have a hard time with the idea of someone being inherently worthless) education could be the problem, education isn't designed to foster creative thought and educating children in things that require a developed prefrontal cortex doesn't work. Could the answer just be educating adults to tutor children, that might take a couple generations to make significant change, but something must happen because the changes are coming and they will come quickly and they will not be something that can be ignored. Of course doing nothing will lead to legions of desperate people with no prospects. Desperate people do desperate things and none of us want that, except those who want to watch the world burn.

I can only dream. Banks getting their asses whipped for their excesses and regulations installed to keep things in line, major government funded infrastructure initiatives to get more people working so we can rebuild the economy and our physical structure at the same time, unions getting the chance to rebuild themselves and make inroads in traditional 'right to fire you for any reason and treat you like shiat' states, the wage gap starting to contract with average employee wages rising and executive wages falling, safety net programs being fully funded, the wealthy paying a larger share of the taxes, the middle class being re-established, etc... It would be glorious, and it's only one midterm election away if things go right.

Sorry, but McDonald's is an entry level job intended for teenagers. It is there to teach them the value of hard work. The importance of money and responsibility. And further, I'm sorry but McDonald's is not intended to be long term employment for anyone. If wages increased too much, many more people might want a job there and that is not how the McDonald's model works. I would not pay 68 cents more for a Big Mac, especially not for this reason. McDonald's is the way it is for a reason and it works quite well for them. Don't like it? Move on. Because that's the whole idea.

You mean to be snarky, but that's how today's robber barons have framed it. Not just "Work or starve" but "If we were to raise wages even 50 cents an hour, our huge multinational would be forced either to raise prices exorbitantly or go out of business thus unemploying all our workers."

Neither is true. Of course, just raising wages across the board is not the only solution; but it's not the only problem either.

TuteTibiImperes:If it puts some of the stores out of business, oh well. Competitors will step in that are able to make the numbers work and can pay living wages while still earning a profit. Maybe it won't be a $150K profit per store, and maybe they won't be able to pay the franchise fees that McDonalds charges, but there's still money to be made and someone will be willing to do it for the amount of profit that can still be made while paying a living wage.

That's some AWESOME logic by the way.

'So what if paying these wages drives established businesses with a proven business model out of business, leaving all the employees unemployed. Somehow (magically) some as yet undetermined magical mystery fast food chain will poof into existence offering an even higher wage (by serving unicorn burgers) and everyone will live happily ever after.'

Have you somehow not noticed that Burger King, Chik-Fil-A, Wendy's, Subway, Jack in the Box, Bojangles, Whataburger, Sonic, White Castle, etc. ALL follow the same basic wage levels? Surely if there was some heretofore amazing fast food business model that worked by paying high turnover unskilled workers double the prevailing wage, they would be a break-away success in the last 60 years of fast food?

Fusilier:pueblonative: Fusilier: For some people that point has been reached. There are families where no one has worked for three generations. These people are professional consumers. They are issued section 8 housing, food stamps, a cell phone, and, through native wit, come up with enough loose change for cigs, booze, and dope. It is an economy driven by entitlements and the redistribution of wealth. some are able by dint of hard work to escape from this cycle, but poor schools, low expectations, and bad examples conspire to keep them in a permanent underclass. Fall afoul of the law, and you are pretty much cooked - guaranteed to remain a professional consumer. As automation continues to erode the job market that used to beckon those with a strong bank and weak mind, there will be even fewer jobs to go around. What supervisor will miss a truculent, uneducated youth who (might) show up to work a shift at Mickey Dees, when a reliable 'bot is standing by 24-7 to do the work?

Eh, Gramps, you can't rely on those devil boxes that replace workers and steal men's souls.Yeah, i guess that is why automobiles are still assembled the way they were when Henry Ford ran Detroit. Actually, why have a "horseless carriage at all, when reliable old dobbin is just itching to haul your buckboard into town?Here's a hint. even the most automated enterprise needs a few humans. Just not as many as it used to require.

Case in point, manufacturing. Despite all the talk of manufacturing having fled the country, there was no such event. Manufacturing - as measured in current dollars - has steadily gone up year after year for decades, as seen below in a chart from the United Nations.

The real difference is the number of people needed to generate that output. Case in point, China on that graph. To reach that output, China has over 100 million people working in factories (from the same source, the UN). The US only needs less than 12 million people to produce similar output. Why? Lots and lots of automation.

That's what people mean when they mean the death of manufacturing. Manufacturing is doing great, we just produce more with far less people than before. It's not the death of manufacturing, its the death of manufacturing jobs.

I haven't seen this broken down this way yet, so let me give it a shot. I did some quick math the other day on the real numbers, so am going by memory here.

First, something like 85% of McDonald's are franchises, so however many millions the CEO makes, and basically any of the numbers used by this idiot student just aren't relevant.

The average McDonald's generates something like $2.5 million in revenue a year. Labor runs between 22% and 25%. The average meal is about $5. The average per store profit, ie what goes to the franchise owner is about $150k. So, clearly, doubling labor cost isn't possible.

For those who say "well, I'd pay a buck more...", as pointed out, it just doesn't work that way. If McDonald's could be getting a buck more per customer right now, they would. If you want to pay more to justify decent working wages, then make sure you give your patronage to those places that do so. If the market agrees with you, then problem solved.

But the fact remains that doubling wages, or even increasing by 50% would put most McDonald's stores out of business. Maybe one day UNICEF will get into the burger as well as the impound business, but until then...

Quit talking about the corporate entity. Its not where the conversation needs to be.

Alexei Novikov:They don't need to raise prices at all. Pay the people actually doing work, cut the lazy and completely pointless "executives" out of the picture. Someone whose entire job consists of worthless meetings, moronic buzzwords, and blowjobs from the secretary doesn't deserve any money at all, much less 200x what an actual worker makes. I bet they'd be surprised at how much money there is to spare without paying for private jets, houses large enough to bed an entire city's homeless population, fleets of "Look at me I'm a douchebag" cars, and bonus packages.

That wouldn't do a damn thing. As I pointed out in another thread on this subject, if you took the 8 million annual salary of McDonald's CEO and divided it among all its 440,000 employee's they would receive about $18 each, or about a .01 cent per hour pay raise. Even if you fired everyone who worked above the restaurant level you would only raise that to about .12 cents per hour.

WhyteRaven74:ferretman: Successfully self employed, could hire but taxes on small businesses is 39.6% (Federal - thanks Obama), plus state taxes...also have mortgage costs and utility costs and other employe's costs plus their healthcare.

If increases in wages lead to fewer jobs, could you explain the 50s, when wages grew across the board and there weren't job losses? Also covers the 60s.

Europe and Japan were bombed to oblivion, thus making the US. The only game in town in terms of industrialization?

SomeAmerican:The question isn't "how much would I need to raise McDonald's prices in order to increase wages".

The question is "what date are McDonald's workers going to be replaced with robots".

The technology is there today, and getting cheaper all the time. The cooking is half automated as it is. Finish the job and use a modified call center AI for the drive through. Then let people enter their own orders on kiosks with a token human or two to help as needed.

The higher you raise wages, the cheaper the tech looks, and the sooner that date is.

You may not realize it, but you've actually made a cogent point. More automation means less jobs are available for the same pool of workers. We're going to have to confront the issue of what happens when you simply don't have enough jobs to go around.

kg2095:ferretman: FTA: "In other words, for every dollar McDonald's earns, a little more than 17 cents goes toward the income and benefits of its <a data-cke-saved-href="http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/04/news/companies/mc donalds_jobs/index.ht m" target="_hplink">more than 500,000 U.S. employees."

Yes...there are no other costs besides employee pay and benefits. What the student hasn't taken into account, if minimum wage was doubled, the rising costs associated with the suppliers, the ones who manufacture the beef patties, chicken nuggets, soda syrup, shake mix, french fries, fish sandwiches, packaging suppliers, etc. These are all manufactured by other companies under contract to, in this case, McDonalds and are typically union-shops (at least on the east coast). If everyone's wages increase the product cost will increase and there will be less jobs.

While you make a good point in general, the study was not about raising the wages of the suppliers, just McDonalds' employees. In the real world it would probably have a cascading effect. I would be happy to pay $2 extra for a Big Mac if it meant that people were being paid adequately.

If that makes you happy, why don't you tip the person at McDonalds $2 for the Big Mac you buy?

Bumblefark:Weaver95: ferretman:Yes...there are no other costs besides employee pay and benefits. What the student hasn't taken into account, if minimum wage was doubled, the rising costs associated with the suppliers, the ones who manufacture the beef patties, chicken nuggets, soda syrup, shake mix, french fries, fish sandwiches, packaging suppliers, etc. These are all manufactured by other companies under contract to, in this case, McDonalds and are typically union-shops (at least on the east coast). If everyone's wages increase the product cost will increase and there will be less jobs.

Frederick:According to the sidebar article the average age of fast food workers is 28. You think we should just write off those people as "failed" and not consider seeing to it they have a reasonable means to contribute back to society?

Just throwing this out there, but in the age of information services and automation, isn't there a case to be made that even employing these people at minimum wage doing such menial labor is, itself, a concession to unskilled laborers, distributing something to people who would otherwise be unemployed?

I was only partially kidding about the touchscreen and the robotic arm. Even Asian peasants are getting priced out of factory work by machines. Isn't giving them "a means to contribute back to society" more about giving them useful skills, instead of simply inflating the payoff for not having any?

CaliNJGuy:Frederick: Pray 4 Mojo: The Stealth Hippopotamus: 550 million Big Macs are sold in the US every year.

550,000,000 X .68 = 374,000,000.00

If McD thought they could just increase the price of their Big Mac and make an additional 374 million dollars don't you think they would have already done it?!?

This.

Pointless study is pointless.

/If you work at Mcdonalds in an attempt to support anyone other than yourself, at some point, you failed at life.

According to the sidebar article the average age of fast food workers is 28. You think we should just write off those people as "failed" and not consider seeing to it they have a reasonable means to contribute back to society?

Yes. If you are 28 and working the McD's counter you probably deserve to be there.

Depends.

There are losers and there are motivated people down on their luck.

The problem is that there are naive people who think that everyone who works in fast food past 19 is some poor revolutionary put down by DA MAN. I don't have issues helping people find better employment while they bide their time flipping burgers, buy to say that burger flipping is some kind of career deserving of substantial compensation is nonsense.

GORDON:jst3p: Pray 4 Mojo: jst3p: Pray 4 Mojo: The Stealth Hippopotamus: 550 million Big Macs are sold in the US every year.

550,000,000 X .68 = 374,000,000.00

If McD thought they could just increase the price of their Big Mac and make an additional 374 million dollars don't you think they would have already done it?!?

This.

Pointless study is pointless.

/If you work at Mcdonalds in an attempt to support anyone other than yourself, at some point, you failed at life.

This as close to the actual words, "I got mine, fark you" I have ever seen.

Thanks!

In 1992... I was working for a general contractor as a shovel operator for 6 bucks an hour (which I think was CA minimum wage... if not... it was damn close). You know what I did? I worked hard. I didn't complain. I showed up every day. I learned everything I could. I asked for more responsibility. I didn't have kids when I couldn't afford them.

I make a shiatload more than 6 bucks an hour now... and I still work for a GC (a different GC though). And you know what? I still work hard. I still don't complain... etc...

So yeah... fark you. I got mine because I WORK for it. Go get your own... it's not impossible.

Life doesn't owe anybody a farking thing.

I got mine too, I went from not being able to finish High School due to the disintegration of my family (drugs and San Quentin) to making a very good salary. I, on the other hand recognize that I didn't do it on my own, (and neither did you, although I am sure you think you did) and it is even harder to do now than when I did it because the wealth gap is getting larger and median wages have been frozen for some time. I am sure you have no problem sleeping at night, nor do I. The difference between us is that one of us realizes you are an ass who has no idea what he is talking about.

So, in other words, YOU DIDN'T BUILD THAT.

Were either he or I born in Somalia we wouldn't have the comfortable lives we do.

Abox:Why not let employers pay what the job is worth and have the government just pay welfare to people that need it? That way the cost of subsidizing low-value jobs doesn't fall entirely on the people providing those jobs and teenagers who aren't supporting a family aren't getting an artificially inflated wage.

Employers(mostly) don't pay low level employees what the job is worth, they pay the minimum that they can get away with.

Rand's lacy underwear:Funny aside: There are a few places where the poorer bands have a higher % of their money in stocks, which I can't explain. (Maybe it's just me, but I've never had $20,000 in General Dynamics stock + living out on an abandoned pier off of Mississippi with no job for a whole year.)

You are not entitled to anything, snowflake. Fast food is a job a monkey could do. You are a wage slave. Fast Food and Retail are jobs that get you to learn the real world, then you get off your ass and get educated to get out of the doldrums. If you decided to drop out of high school or you can't go to school because you decided to have 3 kids, that is what normal people call "poor life choices".

You're obviously a Democrat. If you thought like a Republican, you'd realize there is another choice: Fu*ck people on minimum wage. Don't raise it a penny. People who make minimum wage need to strive to improve themselves so that they will one day DESERVE to make more money. One way to give them incentive to do this is to remove the safety net: No more welfare. No more food stamps. No more subsidized housing. This is the kind of tough love necessary to rebuild our economy. It's called "compassionate conservatism." It's a win-win for everybody, because it also allows us to give bigger tax cuts to the people with money -- aka the "job creators" -- who will show their generosity and beneficence by using that tax savings to hire more people... at minimum wage, of course.

/yes, they really do think like this//if you don't believe me, watch Fox News for a while

I believe this is why most Fox News watchers own more than one high powered fire arm. They know, deep in their hearts, that thanks to their policies of marginalizing the under class a revolution is coming. I think on a certain level they welcome it, as they think GodTM will ensure that they're the ones who win the war.

Marie Antionette, when told there was no bread for the commoners, said "let them eat cake." John Boehner (or his future equivalent), when told that the minimum wage is not enough to let them buy bread, will likely say something to the effect of, "let them get a second job." What has happened before can easily happen again. We as a society are not as smart as we think we are.

jst3p:Pray 4 Mojo: The Stealth Hippopotamus: 550 million Big Macs are sold in the US every year.

550,000,000 X .68 = 374,000,000.00

If McD thought they could just increase the price of their Big Mac and make an additional 374 million dollars don't you think they would have already done it?!?

This.

Pointless study is pointless.

/If you work at Mcdonalds in an attempt to support anyone other than yourself, at some point, you failed at life.

This as close to the actual words, "I got mine, fark you" I have ever seen.

Thanks!

In 1992... I was working for a general contractor as a shovel operator for 6 bucks an hour (which I think was CA minimum wage... if not... it was damn close). You know what I did? I worked hard. I didn't complain. I showed up every day. I learned everything I could. I asked for more responsibility. I didn't have kids when I couldn't afford them.

I make a shiatload more than 6 bucks an hour now... and I still work for a GC (a different GC though). And you know what? I still work hard. I still don't complain... etc...

So yeah... fark you. I got mine because I WORK for it. Go get your own... it's not impossible.

super_grass:A 30-something year old really shouldn't be looking at serious employment in these positions.

Yeah, in a perfect world, maybe, but in case you haven't noticed, we don't live in one of those... How about a 30 year old mill worker who got laid off and still has a family to support? How about the 30 year old rural resident with very few career opportunities? How about the 30 year old single mother who has to support her children?

Sometimes that minimum wage job is all that some people have available to them. it's real easy to pontificate on the internet when you're not in that position yourself.

Do you think someone has a GED from high school, wears his pants at the bottom of his ass, and really really sucks at math... do you think they are worth $15/hour?

The reason you are paid minimum wage is because you are more than likely a person who always achieved the minimum in life. Grades/savings/common sense. I'd be willing to bet a sizeable sum that even if you put all that extra money into the hands of "those people" they wouldn't know to handle is properly. They wouldn't pay off their credit cards, or student loans, it would be spent on dumb crap that dumb people like to buy. Rims, booze, cigarettes, partying, eating out, a new car you (still) really can't afford.

In case you haven't noticed -- increasing the minimum wage does nothing in the long run to give anyone a better life.

Yes, they are worth that. You also sound like a closet racist with that dog whistle.

Food for thought - your "middle class" job with an income of 50k/year is basically what a minimum wage job was back in the early '60s.

BgJonson79:taoistlumberjak: I don't think people realize that, someday down the road (probably on the order of decades, but who knows), CONservative policies are going to end up getting a lot of people lined up on the wall and shot.

Some of those people probably deserve it, but it's a direction nobody wants to go in the long run. CONservatives must be okay with the eventual communist revolution that our country is headed towards.

Why do you say that?

Because at some point, people aren't going to put up with being marginalized by their own government and the people who own the government.It really is not a road we want to go down. That's why the CONservatives have to realize that giving everything to the corporations who pay them and nothing to their constituents is bad policy, and try to balance the needs of both.

Debeo Summa Credo:Weaver95: Dow Jones and the Temple of Doom: But what if the increased cost resulted in a decrease in demand and thus lower sales? They may be able to pay employees more, but they'd have to cut costs somewhere else.

well, given that your average CEO makes 400% more than they're worth....you could start there.

Again, when you start your business, pay the CEO no more than he's worth. With paying only fair wages to everyone, you should be able to offer a quality product at a fair price, crushing the inefficient corporations who waste all their money on executive pay.

You don't own McDonald's. It's none of your farking business what they decide to offer in wages or salary to ANY of their workers.

It does when they get tax credits and breaks for creating jobs and we get the tax bill to make sure their employees have luxuries like food and heat because their CEO can't make a budget that corresponds to real farking life.

Pray 4 Mojo:Weaver95: Pray 4 Mojo:If my minimum wage employees are crappy employees BECAUSE I'm paying them minimum wage... then they are crappy employees. Show up early, be smart, work hard and learn... you will get more responsibility and income.

But that's not how it works in the majority of min wage work places. Take walmart for example - you work your best...you get shiat on. you show up and do the bare minimum...you get shiat on. there's no incentive to work hard because you won't ever be rewarded for it. in fact there's every reason to believe you'll actually be punished for it.

Then get some skills and work experience at Walmart... and take them somewhere else.

where, exactly? walmart undermines and destroys the competition. again - you could try to start your own competing business but...with what money?

Weaver95:Pray 4 Mojo:If my minimum wage employees are crappy employees BECAUSE I'm paying them minimum wage... then they are crappy employees. Show up early, be smart, work hard and learn... you will get more responsibility and income.

But that's not how it works in the majority of min wage work places. Take walmart for example - you work your best...you get shiat on. you show up and do the bare minimum...you get shiat on. there's no incentive to work hard because you won't ever be rewarded for it. in fact there's every reason to believe you'll actually be punished for it.

Then get some skills and work experience at Walmart... and take them somewhere else.

Funny how so many successful small businessmen with thriving businesses spend hours on Fark everyday spouting political bullshiat, isn't it?

Even funnier that they're all always right wing assholes.

Yeah, the only thing more prevalent than successful entreprenuers on Fark is people who are absolutely sure about how to run a business and that they would be successful, despite having no experience due to the man keeping them down.

Anyway, I just want to know how raising minimum wage to $15/hr doesn't result in commensurate increases in the cost of everything until $15/hr is no different than $7.25/hr in terms of purchasing power. Minimum wage earners suddenly have a lot more money, they are suddenly buying a lot more stuff, but the stuff...stays the same price? Increased demand leads to stagnant prices right?

If we accept that we will continue to need fast food workers and we will continue to have un-/under-educated folks who fill fast food positions, would you rather:

a) see their wages go up so they stop needing welfare;b) continue to have your tax dollars go to the welfare assistance that makes up the difference in their wages, and subsidizes McDonald's payroll; orc) keep their wages low and abolish welfare, so that they either end up in jail, die of starvation, and/or come murder you in the middle of the night?

freewill:CaliNJGuy: The world needs ditch diggers too. Should McDonalds workers be paid more than the min. wage? That's a debate worth having. Should they be paid twice that? No. Want to make more than that and work at McDonalds? Start at min. wage and work your way up through shift supervisor to mgmt. Don't like it? Too farking bad. That's the way the world works. And I don't want to try one of your stupid apple pies today either.

An alternate way of looking at this would be that they would have more bargaining power if they actually had skills that gave them other viable options. In other words, it's an education problem.

Until you do something about the teeming horde of replacements who also have no hope of earning more anywhere else, this will never work. They'll just slave-drive the poor bastards twice as hard and hire half as many, knowing they have nowhere else to go.

I do agree with you to an extent, however in my line of work I see a lot of different retail sectors at work. A supermarket manager in a major chain makes pretty darn good money. Vacation home in the Bahamas money? No but I see a lot of them pulling up into work in BMW's, Acuras and the like and most of them didn't go to college. They started as a bag boy/person and worked their way up. I don't have a college degree but w/overtime I'm pulling $60K - $65K a year. I work hard. Entry level jobs are just that and they deserve entry level pay. That doesn't always have to mean min. wage but to the person working a McDonalds counter complaining they can't feed their family of two kids on it I say "no shiat". It's a competitive world in both the white and blue collar arena. If you don't do something to stand out and get noticed in a positive manner you'll get passed by again and again. And the bottom line is not everybody deserves to get promoted.

I work with minimum wage employees all the time... there's a reason they are minimum wage employees.

I work with managers and vice presidents all the time, as well as with doctors and accountants. some are good at their jobs, some clearly have no business being where they are, and most just wanna get the job done and go home for a beer and maybe mow the lawn before the sun goes down. which has about as much relevance as your statement here - its been my experience that if you underpay someone you get what you pay for. if there isn't any incentive for an employee to actually participate, then yeah - you'll probably get crappy employees. welcome to human nature 101. offer someone a real wage increase for doing a good job and hey, i'll bet you get good employees. not just an extra .60 cents either, I mean $25 bucks an hour if they show up and work for it.

My use of "they" refers to the ones that I actually have experience with... I certainly don't know every minimum wage employee.

If my minimum wage employees are crappy employees BECAUSE I'm paying them minimum wage... then they are crappy employees. Show up early, be smart, work hard and learn... you will get more responsibility and income.

WhyteRaven74:ReapTheChaos: After a year or two, when all the wage and price increases have finally settled down, the economy will be right back to where it was before, and $15 an hour minimum wage wont buy a damn thing more than it did at $7.25.

If that was the case then it would be impossible for purchasing power to ever increase. Only thing is between 1947 and 1980 real purchasing power doubled.

That has nothing to do with minimum wage and everything to do with the fact that every year, innovation and technological developments increase the per capita production, energy and food harvesting capabilities of our society. That drives an increase in wages and a corresponding inflation. If you are not productive, you either live off social or personal charity. Some people have welfare, some are married or live with family/friends. Be content that we don't let poor people starve anymore, and get on with struggling to survive like everyone else who doesn't work for the government, or have Congress in their pockets.

I don't think people realize that, someday down the road (probably on the order of decades, but who knows), CONservative policies are going to end up getting a lot of people lined up on the wall and shot.

Some of those people probably deserve it, but it's a direction nobody wants to go in the long run. CONservatives must be okay with the eventual communist revolution that our country is headed towards.

Do you think someone has a GED from high school, wears his pants at the bottom of his ass, and really really sucks at math... do you think they are worth $15/hour?

The reason you are paid minimum wage is because you are more than likely a person who always achieved the minimum in life. Grades/savings/common sense. I'd be willing to bet a sizeable sum that even if you put all that extra money into the hands of "those people" they wouldn't know to handle is properly. They wouldn't pay off their credit cards, or student loans, it would be spent on dumb crap that dumb people like to buy. Rims, booze, cigarettes, partying, eating out, a new car you (still) really can't afford.

In case you haven't noticed -- increasing the minimum wage does nothing in the long run to give anyone a better life.

Full Metal Retard:There is no need to raise pay unless you are unable to find workers.

The world does not magically owe lazy fark ups $500,000 a year.

And I doubt the magical number too. It's just a number invented by some politically correct brainwashed student who has never run a business.

$15 an hour x 40 hours per week by 50 working weeks per year (assume two weeks vacation) is $30,000. Not a princely sum by any means, but at least enough to support yourself in most of the country without welfare programs.

Pray 4 Mojo:/If you work at Mcdonalds in an attempt to support anyone other than yourself, at some point, you failed at life.

It doesn't matter how marginal a job at McDonald's is colloquially, in reality it's where half a million Americans eat and work. They call the job a "job" and the meal a "meal". If the job or meal isn't legitimate, they shouldn't be allowed to call it that.

Starting pay at In-n Out is $10 /hr and you know what they get for that? Ridiculously polite, literate staff and a drive through line that wraps around the block. Now is some of that attributed to better hamburgers than McDonalds? Sure, but their fries suck balls and there is nothing else on the menu. Prices are roughly the same and somehow In n Out is able to pay their employees more. Their employees treat the customers better which helps drive sales.

It's not about that. It's about profit at the end of the fiscal year. These days, if a company doesn't see improved growth consistently, the management gets fired. Big players will do whatever is required to keep those numbers up and keep drawing that big salary.

Weaver95:ferretman:Yes...there are no other costs besides employee pay and benefits. What the student hasn't taken into account, if minimum wage was doubled, the rising costs associated with the suppliers, the ones who manufacture the beef patties, chicken nuggets, soda syrup, shake mix, french fries, fish sandwiches, packaging suppliers, etc. These are all manufactured by other companies under contract to, in this case, McDonalds and are typically union-shops (at least on the east coast). If everyone's wages increase the product cost will increase and there will be less jobs.

you failed economics class, didn't you?

Yeah, cuz economics is a science..nobody with a PhD in econ from Harvard EVER argues exactly the opposite course of action with a PhD from Princeton over economic issues.

If you want to earn more monet, then get a better job than flipping burgers. It is meant to be an entry-level position, not to support a family. Other people do not owe you anything, much less a government-mandated minimum wage. It's this lazy sense of entitlement that is killing this country.

I think some people are against raising wages because that would make them feel less wealthy.Maybe they are so used to the tired arguments and made up their minds long ago to the point that facts cannot change them.Maybe they love to watch people suffer in poverty.

There is enough turnover in fast food that the jobs won't be missed. There will even be new jobs for attempts at automation. Now way too much money from fast food goes to advertising and marketing.

i'd love too...but my competition has artificially jacked up the barriers to entry into the market segment i'm most interested in getting into right now. oh, I suppose I could write my congressthing about it...but lets be honest - who's he gonna listen to, me or the megacorp that's giving him a couple hundred thousand a year to look the other way?

which leaves me the grey or black market, but there's other issues involved with that market that present a different set of challenges.

Voiceofreason01:Pray 4 Mojo:/If you work at Mcdonalds in an attempt to support anyone other than yourself, at some point, you failed at life.

because everybody can be a billionaire CEO of a Fortune 500 company if they just work hard enough!

/that anybody can become a huge success regardless of their circumstances is probably the biggest lie of the "American Dream"

First... you said that.

Then... you said this:

Voiceofreason01:Pray 4 Mojo:I work with minimum wage employees all the time... there's a reason they are minimum wage employees.

Cool story bro! My roommate's neighbor's cousin once saw some woman buy cigarettes and a bunch of junk food with food stamps and drive away in an Escalade therefore all forms of Welfare(or "entitlements") are teh evil.

While companies like Walmart and McDonald's probably could pay $15 and hour by only raising prices on each item they sell a few cents, most smaller businesses would go bankrupt if they had to pay that much. Not only that, but other people start demanding pay raises as well. People with skills and experience who were making $15-20 an hour before minimum wage went up are going to demand an appropriate raise as well, and by all rights they deserve it.

After a year or two, when all the wage and price increases have finally settled down, the economy will be right back to where it was before, and $15 an hour minimum wage wont buy a damn thing more than it did at $7.25.

While that is one possibility, I don't think that's what would happen long term. There would likely be an initial price increase across the board, but certain companies would also see it as an opportunity to build market share by lowering revenues and profit margins to undercut the competition. They'd just take slightly lower corporate profits in order to steal the customer base away from competitors, which would prompt the competitors to do the same. Eventually competition would drive prices back down.

incremental increases in the minimum wage instead of one sudden doubling would help to mitigate the inflation problem while still help increase wages across the board and increase the participation of low income workers in the economy(drive economic activity)

ArkAngel:gilgigamesh: ferretman: FTA: "In other words, for every dollar McDonald's earns, a little more than 17 cents goes toward the income and benefits of its <a data-cke-saved-href="http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/04/news/companies/mc donalds_jobs/index.ht m" target="_hplink">more than 500,000 U.S. employees."

Yes...there are no other costs besides employee pay and benefits. What the student hasn't taken into account, if minimum wage was doubled, the rising costs associated with the suppliers, the ones who manufacture the beef patties, chicken nuggets, soda syrup, shake mix, french fries, fish sandwiches, packaging suppliers, etc. These are all manufactured by other companies under contract to, in this case, McDonalds and are typically union-shops (at least on the east coast). If everyone's wages increase the product cost will increase and there will be less jobs.

If the suppliers etc are union shops and their members are only making minimum wage, those are officially the worst unions ever.

But if the people working in the factories are making the same $15/hr minimum wage that the McJobbers are, they're gonna revolt.